Asian collectivity resulted in the failure to construct a regional Asian identity that could be
transferred first into the realm of ideology and then into the realm of security policy.
Instead, it was the ideological confrontation of the Cold War that paved the way for a
regional grouping when ASEAN emerged as a regional body of non-communist states in
Southeast Asia. However, penetration from the global level to the regional (Southeast Asian)
was strong neither in the form of defense pacts or in bilateral supports or military assistance.
Therefore, the emergence of an indigenous regional security vision was not as easy as first
envisaged. However, in stressing the significance of the norms of the ASEAN way, which
included a set of behavioral norms encapsulated in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation
(TAC) and a set of procedural norms, an ASEAN, as opposed to an Asian identity, was
Over time it became clear that ASEAN way (as the dominant norm of regional
security contact, especially after the expansion of ASEAN, and within ARF, ASEAN plus
One –APO- and ASEAN plus Three- APT) was not about dispute settlement or conflict
resolution, although these were foreseen;
the onus, rather, was, as Leifer pointed out, as far
back as 1996, on ‘creating a regional milieu in which such problems either did not arise or
could be managed or contained’.
This ‘regional solutions for regional problem’ approach, still part of the rhetoric used by the
elder ASEAN members, was well suited to appease the security worries of Southeast Asian
states. The basic insecurity that the states and people of the region felt stemmed from
interstate rivalries and were expressed in various forms such as irredentism, assistance to
secessionist groups and non-recognition of statehood.
Even though these problems were
shaped and exacerbated under the ideological rivalry of the external powers and their
balancing acts in Asia, they were intra-regional problems and closely connected with local
social and political experiences like late-modernization, new development and post-
colonialism. Hence, the regional conceptualization of ASEAN was based on cooperative
security (confidence building and transparency) in order to cope with strategic uncertainties
rather than on creating a regional security community. That is why, some like Martin Jones
and Smith have labeled ASEAN an ‘imitation’ community (not an imagined community), in a
similar fashion to post-colonial imitation states.
Indeed an “ASEAN we” has been very different from the “we-ness” and “mutual
responsiveness” which Deutsch and his associates have described in terms of security
community. It is true that the central tenet of the Deutschian security community is the
peaceful resolution of problems and this vision is shared by the founding fathers of ASEAN.
3
Convention